The late, great Terry Wogan and the recently departed Fidel Castro rarely appear together in the same sentence, but the two men had a couple of things in common. Both were educated by Jesuits – Sir Terry at Limerick’s Crescent College; El Presidente at schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana – and both men had the gift of the gab.
They put their talents to radically different uses, of course. Wogan was master of the pithy phrase that helped ease Radio 2 listeners into their day and almost made the Eurovision Song Contest tolerable, while Castro was all about hectoring his foes or preaching revolution with a loquacity that made the mind boggle. But might their education have had some influence on their love of holding forth? Did Jesuit schools represent the ideal training ground for those who would make their mark by turning a phrase, whether as broadcaster or dictator?
